“I don’t know,” Matt answered truthfully. “I wish there was something more I could do.”
“You’ve done all you know how to do,” Mr. Worsley said. “Nobody’s expecting you to work miracles.”
But Matt could see that’s exactly what they were hoping for. “I’ll call the hospital first thing tomorrow,” Matt said.
He knew his call wouldn’t make any difference, but it would make Josh’s parents feel better.
Matt wondered who took care of the farm. With chemotherapy treatments, they were away for days at a time. Maybe weeks if Josh reacted badly. He didn’t know much about farms, but he did know you couldn’t just walk off and expect it to take care of itself.
“Who takes care of things while you’re away?”
Mr. Worsley’s face relaxed for the first time since Matt had met him. “We got kin, Doctor. They’ll see to everything as long as need be.”
“They’ve been here ever since Josh took sick,” Mae said, “cooking, cleaning and doing all the outside work so me and Addison could sit with Josh. They know he’s all we got.”
But they had so much more. Strange how everybody in Iron Springs took it for granted. They shouldn’t.
Liz smelled beer on his breath, smoke in his clothes. “You’ve been drinking.”
She shouldn’t have said anything. He wasn’t drunk. Besides, it wasn’t her business. It was just the surprise. Matt had never drunk anything before, at least not to her knowledge.
He gave her a look she hadn’t seen in a long time, the one that said she was sticking her nose into things that didn’t concern her.
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s just so unexpected. Did you have an emergency? The children waited up for you.”
He’d left the house after dinner to see Josh Worsley. She’d expected him back hours ago. He had become part of Ben’s and Rebecca’s bedtime rituals. She’d only gotten Ben to sleep by promising Matt would come tell him good-night the minute he got back.
“No. I drove around for a while after I left the Worsleys. I wanted to think. I stopped in Newmarket and had a couple of beers while I was there.”
He wasn’t acting like himself. He didn’t look like himself, either. He looked mussed up. She couldn’t ever remember him looking the slightest bit rumpled.
“How is Josh doing? You were gone so long I worried he was worse.”
“He’s okay. There won’t be any change for a while yet.”
He obviously didn’t want to talk about it. Probably more of his professional reticence. He still couldn’t understand there was a difference between wanting to know confidential medical information and being worried about a neighbor.
“You’re looking mighty pretty tonight,” Matt said.
He had changed the subject, so she gave up. She didn’t mind receiving compliments, and this was the first compliment she’d had since he’d gone off with Georgia Allen. He hadn’t come back until the next day. She’d expected that. She hadn’t expected to dislike it so much.
But almost immediately she got the feeling she might have misjudged the situation. Matt seemed almost relieved to be back. He told the kids funny stories about the people he’d met. He told her about the views of the mountain and the waterfall. He spoke of Georgia like he would a sister. Liz was an only child, so she wasn’t certain how brothers and sisters past the ages of three and four acted toward one another, but her jealousy told her there was nothing loverlike in Matt’s attitude toward Georgia.
She hated to admit how pleased that made her.
But something was wrong with Matt now. He wasn’t acting like himself. Not even like he had at the lake.
“It’s cooler on the porch. Why don’t we sit out there.”
This was a side of Matt she hadn’t seen. She wondered if two beers were enough to cause him to let down his barriers far enough for her to get a look at the real Matt Dennis.
Prudence told her she ought to decline his invitation. Desire to be near him made her accept.
She followed him onto the porch. He removed his coat and tie, carefully folded them and laid them over the back of a chair. That was one thing the beer hadn’t changed. Then he sat down in the swing and patted the place beside him.
She cocked her head, looked at him quizzically.
“I am human. I even show it on occasion.”
The temptation to throw herself at him was enormous. But she couldn’t do that without letting down her protective barriers. She wasn’t sure enough of her own feelings to risk that.
“That’s some confession.”
“You’ve been telling me for weeks I ought to be more human, to try to get to know people. Now when I make an attempt, you stand there looking like my third-grade teacher.”
“Why start with me?”
“Why not? I like you more than anybody else in Iron Springs.”
“More than Ben and Rebecca?”
She hated herself for saying that. It sounded small, but she couldn’t help it. It hurt that he liked her children better than her.
“There’s nothing complicated about liking children. You play with them, read them a story and that’s all there is to it. It’s different with adults. Even more so with women.”
“We’re too big to believe in fairy tales, and our games have very different rules.”
“Why are you snapping at me tonight?”
“Last week you were as cold to me as a winter storm. Now you want to get cozy and you ask why I don’t jump at the chance. In between, you went howling at the moon with Georgia Allen.”
“Georgia has nothing to do with this. I had some thinking to do. I was still fighting getting involved, but it didn’t do any good. I am involved.”
“Are you sure you can tell the difference between me and Georgia? It is dark out here.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re nothing alike.”
“So now I’m ridiculous. I’ll bet you didn’t say that to Georgia.”
“You’re jealous.” He sounded surprised.
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. You think I slept with Georgia.”
“I wouldn’t be out here if I did.” She hadn’t meant to expose herself that far, but it was too late now. “Actually I haven’t thought about it at all. What you do is none of my business.”
“It is when I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than kiss you.” He got up from the swing and started toward her. Liz felt like she was being stalked. “I bored Georgia silly. I talked about you and the kids all night. I would have come back early if I’d had enough sense to drive.”
“You could have called.”
“I almost did. I thought about you.”
She’d missed him, too, but he didn’t need to know that. “I was very busy.”
“I kept thinking of what I’d like to do to you.”
“Matthew Dennis! If you dared—”
“I wanted to kiss you. I wanted to hold you tight.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I want to do it this very minute.”
She backed away. She wasn’t going to be ignored for days on end, then be his plaything the minute he felt in the mood. “What makes you think I feel the same way?”
“You came out on the porch with me.”
“As you correctly pointed out, it’s cooler out here.”
He came closer, and she backed farther away.
“You were worried about me.”
“Worried about Josh. Curious as to why you were gone so long.”
He kept advancing. She kept backing—around a chair, around the corner to the side porch.
“You let me kiss you at the lake.”
“You’re much stronger than I am.”
“You kissed me back.”
Matt had her backed up at the end of the porch. She had nowhere to go. He closed in on her. She felt his fingertips brush her cheek. She shivered despite the heat.
“Liz.”
His voice wa
s a hoarse whisper, heavy with desire. Liz felt an answering response surge up from somewhere deep inside her. In an instant, her whole body felt taut with the sweet ache she had denied for so long.
He brushed his fingertip across her lips. He took her face in his hands and caressed her lips with his thumbs.
“They’re made for kissing and loving.”
She wished she could see his eyes more clearly. The huge oaks surrounding the house blocked out the moonlight. The light from inside the house came from behind him, turning him into a dark shadow looming above her.
His voice sounded soft and sensual; his touch felt gentle and caressing. But she needed to see his eyes. Only then could she tell whether he spoke from his heart or from somewhere a bit farther south.
“I kiss and love my children every day,” she replied.
His hands moved to the back of her neck, the top of her shoulders, rubbed away the tension. The feel of his fingers on her bare skin turned up the heat in a way his words couldn’t. Liz felt as though she would melt, sag against him, abandon herself to him, but she fought off the desire to toss away all restraint and let herself be washed about on this sensual tide. She had given herself over to a man once before, and he had rejected her. She wasn’t sure she could endure that a second time.
But Matt wasn’t just any man, and his effect on her was mesmerizing.
“I wasn’t talking about children,” he purred. “Only a man can kiss you the way you ought to be kissed, can love you the way a woman ought to be loved.”
She wasn’t thinking clearly. The most irrational thoughts kept floating to the surface of her mind. The feel of his lips on her mouth sent her thoughts scattering like dry leaves before an October wind.
It was a greedy, hungry, sloppy kiss, like the kiss down by the lake. Liz abandoned any sense of restraint, any intention of merely testing the waters. She dived straight into the center of the pool and let the heat of passion wash over her.
Liz felt particularly vulnerable. Only a halter top and a thin pair of shorts kept her body from being completely open to Matt’s exploring hands. The rapidity with which they roamed over every part of her made her feel no clothing would have given her enough protection tonight.
The fact that he was fully dressed didn’t reduce the feeling of intimacy. Feelings, emotions, needs that had been carefully locked away tumbled forth in one wild jumble. She didn’t know what she felt, what she wanted, not even what she feared. She only knew Matt had something she needed desperately, something she could not do without any longer.
She pressed herself against him. She couldn’t hold back. The pressure on her breasts caused her nipples to grow hard and sensitive. She felt his erection through his clothes. She had fought with herself over this man, agonized over him. It was a relief to finally know, to admit what she wanted to do.
She felt his hands on her breasts. She knew she ought to back away, but it felt too good to stop. No one had touched her in years. Her body ached for it, longed for it. He kissed her neck, her shoulders, her ears.
Liz felt completely at the mercy of her body, her senses, the need that had gone ignored and unfulfilled for so long. Matt’s mouth and hands had stoked into flame the simmering heat that had been burning deep inside her since the day he walked up on her porch.
Matt’s hands slipped inside her top, and her breath caught in her throat. She had to stop him now. No matter what she felt, no matter how shrilly her body cried out for the release only Matt could provide, she couldn’t let herself be seduced on her own porch.
“Matt—”
She couldn’t talk when his lips covered her mouth. She tried to push his hands away, but he was so much stronger. He didn’t seem to notice her feeble resistance. She had to try harder. She must.
Summoning up all her willpower, she slipped out of his arms.
“What the hell?” he muttered. He looked stunned, like he didn’t understand what had just happened.
Liz felt almost too weak to stand. For a moment, she couldn’t move. She just stood there, leaning against the wall, waiting for some strength to return to her muscles. She was breathing like she’d been running. “We got a little carried away,” she said when she finally managed to catch her breath.
Apparently still under the sway of his passion, Matt reached out for her. “We were only kissing,” he said.
She sidestepped his grasp. With the first of her returning strength, she adjusted her top to cover her breasts. “We were about to do a whole lot more than that.”
The sight of her bra askew seemed to bring him back to reality. She could see a stiffening of his expression, the slow spread of chagrin as he realized what had almost happened.
“I didn’t mean... I don’t want you to think I always... It must have been the beer,” he said in the end.
“I’d like to think a little bit of it was me.”
“It was all you,” he said, gradually regaining control of himself, “it always has been. It’s just that I knew it couldn’t work and I managed to keep my distance. The beer just loosened enough restraints so I could do what I’d been wanting to do for a long time.”
“I don’t have beer as an excuse. I should have known what I was doing.”
“It’s all right, Liz. Don’t beat yourself up over it. Nothing happened.”
“But I wanted it to. I know all your reasons and mine about why I shouldn’t—why it can’t work—but I wanted it anyway.
“It doesn’t change anything, though. I want a husband, a father for my children, a man who loves me and will come home to me at night, who thinks of me before his career. I don’t want an affair.”
“I didn’t mean to—”
“I’m not blaming you. I’m just as much at fault. I’d like for you to go up and say good-night to Ben. I’m sure he’s lying awake waiting for you.”
He stood there a moment, silent, immobile. He looked so unhappy she wanted to reach out and hold him in her arms. But she didn’t dare. If she so much as touched him, her willpower would vanish completely.
“I’ve never loved anybody in my life,” he said when he finally spoke. “Nobody ever loved me. I didn’t know what it feels like. I always thought I didn’t want it, but we have something I don’t want to lose. Yet I’m afraid of what it’ll make me do. I feel like I want to run away and hide. Is that what love feels like?”
“What you’re feeling is fear, panic. Something has come along that upset your carefully organized world, made you question your preconceived notions, made you start to reevaluate your goals. You can’t possibly know what you feel until you stop being scared. Love will make you do things you don’t want to do, but it will give you something more precious than all the careers you could ever have.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I was in love once.”
“But that marriage went sour.”
“Not because I didn’t love David enough. I just didn’t pick a worthy man to love.”
“How do you know it won’t happen again?”
“I don’t. I have to be willing to take a chance and follow my heart.”
“I couldn’t do that.”
Liz lifted her shoulders to rid herself of the last of the tension. “Then you’ll never know the greatest joy a person can experience. Now, please go tell Ben good-night before he gets out of his bed.”
“We’re not through with this yet,” Matt said.
“Yes, we are. We never got started.”
She waited without moving until he rounded the corner of the porch. She still didn’t move until she heard him open the front door. She fell into a rocking chair and burst into tears.
Matt’s steps as he climbed the stairs were slow and deliberate. The whole evening had been a surprise to him. He almost didn’t know himself anymore. What was he doing? What was he becoming? He wasn’t sure he disapproved so much as he simply didn’t understand.
That frightened him. He’d never been happy with his life, but he’d understood
what he was doing and why. He’d always felt in control of his own feelings. But that wasn’t true any longer, and today had shown that very clearly.
He’d always maintained that a doctor should keep an emotional distance between himself and his patients, but he’d failed entirely with Josh Worsley. It upset him that he couldn’t relieve the boy’s pain. He felt guilty for calling himself a doctor and being so helpless.
Then he’d had a few beers and virtually attacked Liz. Putting aside the fact she didn’t deserve such treatment and he didn’t want to do anything like that to someone he liked so much, he couldn’t imagine what had caused him to come undone. He knew Liz didn’t want casual sex. She was a one-man woman. She wanted a home, a full-time husband, all the things he either didn’t want, didn’t trust or didn’t have time for.
What in the hell was wrong with him? He didn’t want to change. Was this transformation some genetic time bomb his unknown parents had planted inside of him, or was it caused by Iron Springs and the people who lived here? Hell if he knew. He supposed it was that alien at work again.
He tiptoed into Rebecca’s room without cutting on the light. She was sound asleep, a stuffed rabbit clutched to her chest. He bent over and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
It was warm and soft. She didn’t move, but she smiled and something inside him went a little funny. He tiptoed out of the room. He was coming apart at the seams. He had to get to Charlottesville soon. Maybe away from Iron Springs, he could figure out what was happening to him.
Ben’s room was as messy as Rebecca’s was neat. Shoes, books, a train and a set of wooden blocks testified to what he’d been doing when he should have been sleeping. He was curled up on the floor, his favorite book, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, under his cheek. He’d gone to sleep waiting for Matt to read to him.
Matt picked Ben up as gently as he could and put him in his bed. His chubby little legs stuck out of shorty pajamas. Matt pulled a sheet over him.
“Matt?” Ben mumbled as he turned over, his eyes still closed.
“Yes, sport. It’s me.”
Just What the Doctor Ordered Page 18
